


I Too Sing Praises

by ERNest



Series: 15 Days of FatT 2019 [8]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication Failure, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Reunions, Season: Marielda, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 17:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18098519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: Day Eight: RejoiceTo rejoice is to demand an answer but neither of them is listening. Ethan is not able to listen, and Edmund is not able to speak.(Alternate Title: Gather Us In, The Lost and Forsaken)





	I Too Sing Praises

     To rejoice is to demand an answer. One person shouts “Joy!” and the next person returns it, and the next joins in, and the next repeats it, and the next doubles it, until all the world is in jubilee. One cannot rejoice alone.

     And E. Hitchcock has always been a pair. The brothers know each other well, cannot help knowing each other if they tried, and each of them _has_  tried at certain points in their lives. They speak the language of their mirror’s body to know when one is sad and needs cheering up, or when one has happiness he needs to share. They’ve both learned the proper call and response for when one needs to fill in for the other’s class in a pinch, and how to arrange a cravat so Ethan’s scar and Edmund’s unmarked neck go unnoticed and unremarked.

     Truly, all the Hitchcock twins need to find joy is each other. And… more money than they have right now. And… the other half of their mother’s map. And… to have one or two bets placed at any given time. And… a little bit of fame and fortune. And… a little bit of scum and villainy. But all the rest is just extra because what they really need is each other, and being on the same team is how they will get the extra.

     There was a bad patch, a bleak series of months – not even a year, though it felt like a century – when they would talk to each other but never communicate. Somehow between the two of them, they lost the script, or one of them got a shuffled version. Who was that – the one who lied by omission, or the one always one step behind the rest of the group? It became unbearable and by the time the King-God Samothes was dead they couldn’t hear each other at all. Ethan walked away, then ran, then rode, while Edmund drifted in one place, and dreamt and bled. They were both alone alone alone, no rejoicing to be had or found or made.

     But in time they recovered separately, and separately they traveled to the same place. They each followed the map that was a birthright for both of them, and all they had left of each other in those dark days. Not even their faces which were so similar could bring them closer. Edmund was such a stranger to his own body that it couldn’t possibly be a memento of anyone else’s. Ethan could only probe at his scars and bruises both physical and mental and wonder just where he’d gone so wrong.

     But when Hitchcock knocks on the door of a house he’s only seen in dreams, and Hitchcock opens it, they just stand there and look at each other at first. Neither one moves to cross the threshold and when they both start to speak at the same time, they then give the same crooked smile, which gives way to a joint laugh that while not identical, complements each other’s notes. Because they’ve found their mirror.

     It doesn’t matter which twin shouts “Joy” first, or which one pulls the other into a hug of forgiveness and repentance and togetherness, because they reduplicate the feeling over and over, making a jubilee with just the two of them.


End file.
